


the spy who loved me

by jarofactonbell



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Gen, I Don't Even Know, M/M, are they flirting or threatening each other, but like really badly done, he has to get even, i did some research but it was on chloroform and knots, i'm a san stan i can't help it, pls feed him why is he so hungry, san is wearing that hala hala cowboy suit from the practice video, spy AU, wooyoung is so mad he's being one upped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 20:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18557530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/jarofactonbell
Summary: “Of course you would,” he rolls his eyes. “And I was just a little bit later and less experienced in coming up against you.”“I wouldn’t say you’re less experienced,” the man twirls a long finger, gloved, completely black. “Just a little unprepared. I had the element of surprise on my end this time. Next time, well,” he leaves that hanging, stopping right in front of Wooyoung. “It’s fair game.”“I don’t know how long you’ve been playing on this field for, but there is no such thing as fair game,” he hooks a finger into his stun gun, drawing it out, pointing point blank, between the nice eyebrows and expressive eyes. “It would only hurt a little.”“You never cease to surprise me, Wooyoung,” is all he gets, before the mask is tugged down, a line of a hooked nose ridge, before a shower of smoke, and the complete disappearance of a master ghost spy.Okay. Okay Hongjoong and Yeosangwould notbe happy with this.Nobody should know Wooyoung’s name. How did this one know?





	the spy who loved me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bandable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandable/gifts).



> i got into ateez and woosan said 'now write' so i have to. plus, please imagine wooyoung in a suit, doing spy stuff, kinda like a kingsman thing, but prettier and better than white british boys can be. he is learnt, good at his job and loaded. keep that in mind
> 
> (and san is just lowkey,,,,gay and doesn't know how to flirt please save him)

Okay, _fine._

Maybe Wooyoung has too much pride in espionage. Maybe thinking that he is the best won’t help him in the long run.

_Fine._

That doesn’t explain any of this though. It doesn’t explain the unsuspecting traps, the literal net and poison combo deal that nabbed him the moment he rigged into the warehouse.

Wooyoung is good at his job. It's how he can demand a ridiculous sum of payment up front and collect even more after the job with guarantee that he will do well. But right now? He can kiss that diamond encrusted knife collection goodbye as he slumps sideways and hit the floor.

Vaguely he can hear soft footsteps and a small chain of giggles as his vision tunnels and shutters off.

 

He wakes in a really undignified lump - flailing and rocking on a bound chair, legs coming off the ground. He's inside a warehouse - surroundings are unclear to determine if it's the one he's meant to break into - tightly knotted to a chair. Just a simple kitchen chair, wooden, can easily topple if he decides to rock a little too hard and fall over, breaking his nose on impact.

He received training to get out of chairs in these very specific situations,  _yes_ , but Wooyoung's fatal flaw is that when a situation hasn't arrived in more than two years he tends to be slack on the details of  _how_  to deal with it specifically.

His mortal undoing will be his carelessness with a side of pride.

"You're up!" A soft voice cheers. "I thought we had to resort to a cold bucket of water to the face if you didn't wake up and leave the party.”

“That wasn’t a very fun party,” he grouses, peeking open an eye. Tall, his kidnapper is tall. Male, so that makes fighting his way out probably a little bit harder. “Where are all the music and terrible alcohol?”

“Didn’t have that, but you did take in a healthy dose of chloroform,” the culprit bends down, lower, until he reaches eye level with Wooyoung, goggles and a face mask obscuring all signs of possible identifiable features.

Yeosang is going to cut him open and eat his liver if he returns without either the intel needed  _or_ some form of identification on the one who managed to usurp his unshakable post as Master Spy.

“No wonder my mouth still tastes sweet,” he laments, though not bitterly. Everything is still too woozy and baffling that he can’t exactly put a finger on it. 

“I try my best,” the man in the shadow, the thing with the sweet voice - seriously, is that a real voice? Can human voices can just Do That? Is he just hallucinating? Can he tell how many fingers are there in front of him if someone does try to test his sight? “Apologies for the ambush. I can’t have others jeopardising my objective.”

“I can understand that,” Wooyoung grunts, working a wrist free as he wobbles and pretends to have terrible balance on a bound, shaky chair. Uneven legs -  _ha ha, clumsy silly me -_  he can claim later. “Emphatically.”

“I’m so glad we have something in common,” he can hear the smile and the genuine pleasantry, dripping from his culprit’s drawling tone. _W_ _hy does he speak Like That?_

“Yeah...” he inches away, shaking loose and sweaty hair from flopping even further into his eyes and eyelashes. “So glad...”

“Your sarcasm wounds me. I thought we had a connection,” the person laments, hand clasping the front of his long sweeping coat - can people genuinely move in that, Wooyoung just wants to talk. 

“We would, if you would show me your face,” he coughs, hoping that it’s loud enough to mask the rip of fabric that just went on in the back of his tightly bound hand. He thinks it’s the handcuff knot, hybridised with something that hitches on top of holding him in. Unlike the chair situation, he actually paid attention when the knots lectures came about. His long lost dream was to be a sea pirate, so he obsessed over knots and ship diagrams when he was younger, and then that dream had to be adapted to becoming an internationally hunted espionage agent, occasionally boarding ships to dig through people’s loots and information before escaping through the steam room’s window and swimming to a canoe waiting nearby.

But pirate childhood dream aside, he still can’t get out. The problem is that while he is great at  _tying people up,_ he can’t get his brain to do the reverse of  _untying himself from difficult knots that he can do himself_ fast enough to avoid a rapid round of gunfire or a hostage situation, which, he is unfortunately in one at the moment. 

“I don’t do interrogation until the third date,” there is a wink in there, Wooyoung can tell. Damn, his brain is bad with memorising voices. He is a visual learner, through and through, and right now the entire assemble this guy has got going for him is  _really bloody effective. H_ e can’t ascertain a definitive height, body shape, face shape, eye - nothing. Nada. Zilch.  _Zero._

Argh. Yeosang  _and_ Hongjoong-hyung are both going to gang up and dangle him on the top of a telecommunication tower somewhere, for failing this mission. There is no winning if he isn’t in the specified location that he was meant to target and rob the intel of, there is no winning if he had been gassed and bound and definitely no victory in not being able to pinpoint who captured him and jeopardise his mission.

“Damn,” he sighs, dramatic and dejected. Wait. _Da_ _te._

Maybe -

Perhaps...

He’s good at what he does because all his skills and arsenals are trained towards efficiency at spying and getting himself out of compromising situations. He himself had never been a. in a seduction mission before or b. been on the receiving end of an odd proposition in the middle of a mission gone sideways. 

 _There is a first for everything. There are always ways out, you’re not looking hard enough,_ Hongjoong’s voice nags at him in his coconut numbskull. 

Okay. _Ok_ _ay._ He can do this. Play this game, and see if he can do anything about it.

“What do you normally do on your first dates?” He throws himself forward, dragging his chair with his lurch frontward. 

His kidnapper in black only laughs, catching him across the shoulder and righting him. He doesn’t smell like anything, deceptively free of cologne or aftershave or a brand of detergent. Nothing. Zero signs given to him. Damn. Not even a crumb.

“Well, we’d tell each other what we would go by, but I can see that you’re at a slight disadvantage - I did do a bit of a Facebook stalking round, don’t feel bad if you haven’t done the same yet. The woes of blind dating,” the voice is charming, and it’s nice to listen to, but the fake cheeriness is slowly bleeding out to genuine cheek. Okay, so Wooyoung is mostly an obstacle to be removed, but he also garnered enough interest to prompt this chat and the subtle veneer of maybe mockery in his cheery voice.

He can tell that much, but he’s not an idiot. He knows he’s been researched inside out to be rendered into a chair and bound, and that’s the kind of research he’d like to have insight to, because Wooyoung is a ghost story among the spying world. People don’t think he exists, and have to go through a chain of convoluted communication lines to reach out to him and request his service, with money always at the ready. He is famous, but literally only ten people know his face, because his face is similar to many others - a curse, but now a blessing. He had pretended to be Park Jimin too many times for him to count, an apology to the politician himself, but, if the shoe fits, he’ll take that shoe and running off with it.

So maybe this is just an opportunity to gloat - _L_ _ook at me, I one upped the great WY, alias Wooyoung, got him tied up in a chair, as I skip away with the intel he was meant to collect for his mission._

That is deeply uncomfortable to think about. Wooyoung has to one up him back, return the favour. He’s playing this game with literally no arms, no sight, just his ears and his brain working overtime. He thinks he might scrape a crumb from this situation yet.

“Wouldn’t it be common courtesy to let your date know something to call you by? I’ve been so kind as to show up to the date. I've been even kinder, by letting you have the fun information stack. You wouldn’t break a poor man’s heart by leaving him in the dark like this?” He thinks - probably - that this is a good attempt of a breathy, seductive voice, from the vague corners of his memory of how ‘seduction’ is supposed to work. 

“Ah.” Then, silence.

There is careful consideration in that one sound. Wooyoung hopes it’s an  _Hm_ _m I might indulge in your silly requests and give you a fake name,_ and not _Now I_ _have to kill you because you’re getting more annoying by the minute and my gloating moment is over._ “I thought you don’t play the seduction game.”

Wooyoung nods until his brain catches up with the words and he’s nodding even as his brain plays  _W H A T_ to the accompaniment of a Cambodian gong as everything goes off in flames.  

“You’re special,” Wooyoung winks, greasy and disgusting, and lets the playful expression slides off his face completely. “Also you one upped me and I have to play you right back.”

“That’s not very gentlemanly of you,” the stranger chides. “Now how can I give you a name or a hint?”

“A hint cannot be any more misleading than a name, so,” he hangs his head, aware that there are hands still planted on his shoulder. He shrugs them off, hopping back on his chair, brain thinking hard. A wrist of his is loose enough to twist around and smack this one across the face, but then he has to let that distance be regained. Gain back the weird tantalising space that hostage and kidnapper allow between them, prey and predator, moments before disaster strikes.

“Well,” and the first step is taken. Wooyoung watches, narrowing his eyes, as the distance between them is lessened, as the shadowy figure kneels in front of him, hand pressing into his vest. “If you interest me enough, I promise to give you a useful hint.”

He doesn’t know jackshit about being interesting or anything pertaining to that, but he knows an opportunity when it presents itself to him, and he rips an arm socket nearly loose from his shoulder joint, swinging it across the face of his kidnapper, the reaction going exactly to plan, dislodging the ugly pair of glasses away, revealing the temple and mellow skin, sweet golden baked pastries.

Damn Wooyoung needs to eat something. He keeps thinking of people and things in terms of edibility. He half wanted to munch on his handkerchief just hours before. Snack, whenever he gets back, and a lot of it.

“Ah,” hard pressed eyes, really deep brown - almost black, squeeze into a pleasant line of smile at him - can a person smile with their eyes? He’s not sure, but this one is doing it, and doing it brilliantly.

He has some eyes. He’s literally never seen anyone with those eyes before. Surely Yeosang can do something, like scan security footages for the same set of matching eyes.

Eyes are really not much to go on for, but look, he scraped himself a crumb, at the cost of nearly dislocating his arm. He should get some brownie points for that.

“I guess you already ripped the hint away from me,” the eyes, animated and lively, squeeze themselves into two crescents of pleased surprise. Wooyoung can take comfort in not being sniped in the chest by this guy, but, once again, he still thinks there are guns hidden somewhere in that ridiculous billowing coat and the stupid cowboy hat. He himself had hidden twenty guns and fifteen knives in his suit before, and it was a semi-casual suit. No vest or breastplate. It’s not that hard with weapons nowadays. 

“What a damn shame,” he drawls right back, vicious and petty, just like who he is, deep down, when he loses at a game. “I was going to beg, but,” he shrugs, half checking on his shoulder, half flexing on this guy.  _On_ _e all, bastard. Your move._

“But you are above that, I am aware,” the eyes mirror the amused tone the voice puts out, flashing brief caramel under Wooyoung’s chloroform gassed up head. “It wouldn’t be a fun game if one of us has the upper hand perpetually.”

Those are really pretty eyes, and under different circumstances, outside of his job, when he’s just Jung Wooyoung, international politics graduate, dance enthusiast, not WY, elite spy master, then maybe he could’ve gone for it. 

Not now, not here. They’ve started on a bad foot already. he doesn’t know what he might do if they do encounter each other, mask completely stripped off from each other. 

“Yeah, gotta keep my standards high, my guys lower,” he winks, trying to wriggle his way out of his hold. “What are you going to do with that intel?”

A gloved hand taps the inner lining of his coat, an eye blinking into a wink. 

“Sell it.”

Wooyoung breathes out harshly. _Of_ _course he would._

“Of course you would,” he rolls his eyes. “And I was just a little bit later and less experienced in coming up against you.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re less experienced,” the man twirls a long finger, gloved, completely black. “Just a little unprepared. I had the element of surprise on my end this time. Next time, well,” he leaves that hanging, stopping right in front of Wooyoung. “It’s fair game.”

“I don’t know how long you’ve been playing on this field for, but there is no such thing as fair game,” he hooks a finger into his stun gun, drawing it out, pointing point blank, between the nice eyebrows and expressive eyes. “It would only hurt a little.”

“You never cease to surprise me, Wooyoung,” is all he gets, before the mask is tugged down, a line of a hooked nose ridge, before a shower of smoke, and the complete disappearance of a master ghost spy.

Okay. Okay Hongjoong and Yeosang  _would not_ be happy with this. 

Nobody should know Wooyoung’s name. How did this one know?

 

“I’ll have you know that I am actually very disappointed in the both of you for forcing me to complete this mission and if I don’t get a hefty sum of money for it, then our friendship is momentarily suspended,” he whines into the intercom, repeatedly rigging the communication line so that every time Hongjoong switches to a different radio frequency, he’s on it first and his rant is ongoing.

“One mission went awry and you suddenly have insecurity issues. really, if I knew the great WY can be shaken so easily -” Hongjoong’s voice is cut off, as a sniper bullet whistles by and shatters his earpiece, all with only a pop of a trigger. 

He has to do this, and then go back and chew Hongjoong out later. In three vastly different languages, because he doesn’t deserve nice and eloquent.

Drawing his gun, he doesn’t make a sudden movement, scanning across the rooftop to determine where the shot came from, and pulls, bullet striking something in his eleven o’clock, slamming down a shooter.

He’s sure he has more, but he doesn’t have time to shoot them all down before the mission is over, and he has to prioritise. Any moment now, that politican will be walking by, unprotected by bullets, and he has to make sure nothing happens to him, so that whoever high up won’t end up yapping onto Yeosang and him about how he lost his favourite playing piece and won’t pay them the fees he signed the contract for.

It's not exactly spy work, but he's not in a position to choose. Not in this economy, anyways. He'll do it because he can, and then he can lament it to the crew later. 

Gosh it’s all a big headache. Politics is a playing field he’d rather not be in, but given his line of work - he keeps finding himself winding back in it, time and time again.

“I can assure you, sir, that this election campaign will be a success -”

He hears the cocking of a gun. Two o’clock. 

 _Pop!_ and another one incapacitated. 

He scans about, surveying his landscape. Yeosang  _thinks_ there should be around ten, so he’s got eight more to knock out and possibly call it a night,  _if_ everything goes according to plan. 

A shadow drops down from thin air. Wooyoung tries hard not to sigh.

_Nothing ever goes according to plan, not in this line of work._

The guy in black - wait, is that The Cowboy Hat - barely dodges a flying bullet, himself drawing two handheld guns from his coat and whipping about, knocking silencing shots to both sides of his extending arms. 

Wooyoung should leave it be. Wooyoung should just shut up, focus, and move on. Don’t do it. _Don’t do the thing, Jung Wooyoung._

He hears a _thump!_ and the guy is one knee down, significantly not as much as a threat. Look, they have a common enemy, they might as well combine manpower. What is that saying? your enemy’s enemy who is your enemy is a shared enemy?

There are too many _enemies_ in that saying for it to be right. He ditches his post and shoots to his ex kidnapper, backing his six.

“Funny how,” he draws a blade, deflecting a stray bullet, “we keep on running literally into each other.”

“Well, we do need to go on that second date,” is the amused returning par, as the guy’s back shifts closer to him, the two of them spinning in a circle, their weapons drawn and on the offence. 

“Our first date was absolutely terrible,” he ditches the gun completely - his wrist is still rubbish after him straining it too hard, and he’s better with a sword on his left anyway. “I want a refund. It has to come with Petrus.”

“I know a nice French restaurant, just a bit from here,” the masked cowboy jokes, swivelling them around, cocking his guns above and below. “Let me walk you there sometime.”

“Are you going to wine and dine me with a mask on, O' Mysterious Spy Master?” He mocks, pulling a knife from inside his belt, hurling it at an open window. 

“You covered my back, so,” a decisive _clang!_ as mystery cowboy turns to him, half hidden in the city lights’ glare. “You get a name in return.”

Wooyoung shouldn’t feel as excited as he just did, but it happened, he’s still working through it, don’t judge him. 

“Yeah? I reckon you should just repay me by,” he leans in closer, because he and Yeosang had tirelessly combed through all the security footages and known photographs of people with the sketch of the eyes Wooyoung staggeringly slaved over, but came up with nothing, and he’s still pissed about it. Normally this approach worked. This is not a normal situation. “Taking off your mask and give me a smile.”

“I’m a hitman for hire, not a stripper for show,” an eye roll behind the mask. 

“I can just,” Wooyoung shrugs, pulling back, before launching himself at the figure shrouded in so many layers of mystery, intending to fully rip the damned ugly mask off, to see what’s the rest of this face is, and if it’s as pretty as the eyes. 

He needs to keep a tab on those gay thoughts. they are interfering in his work. Hongjoong might dock his pay if he keeps on ranting about how pretty this guy’s eyes are.

Like he said, he’s rubbish at dismantling things that he hasn’t seen before, but he’s also unexpected and he is persistent. he will make it work. 

So while the mask doesn’t come off completely, he glimpses a shadow of a jaw, a ghost of a dimple, pressed tight against the corner of a smoked salmon mouth - and he is lightheaded as he is knocked back on his feet, too weak to stay standing.

Dear god. Hongjoong is going to dock his pay so much that when he’s out of it, he’ll be crying slave labour for a month.

“You and your unprecedented ways,” mystery cowboy rolls his eyes, goggles slipping to his neck. “The mask comes off on the fifth date.”

“Are you showing me what’s under your coat on the fourth?” He jokes weakly, as his brain goes into overtime replaying the memory of that  _goddamned jaw,_ with those  _pretty pretty eyes that smile from where they are,_ and the stupid  _dimples._

Yeosang needs to send him overseas so this won’t happen again and -

“How did you know?” The man gasps, pretty giggles pouring out of his throat. “Maybe, I won’t give you a name this time. save it for next time.”

Wooyoung’s head swims with the mention of a  _next time._ That can’t possibly be too good for his brain. 

“Not even if I beg for it?” He flutters his eyelashes, lips pursing into a pitiful pout. He’s been learning. He will get what he wants, no matter how he does it.

And also this bastard is weak for Jung Wooyoung, he knows that much. He’ll fold, like a house of cards.

“You play dirty, Jung Wooyoung,” the man, the myth, the legend - sighs, staggering lightly, smile pressing onto his mask. “Maybe in our third date, I will tell -”

Wooyoung feels like he’s being hit by multiple trains, all at once. 

“You called me Jung Wooyoung,” he interrupts, stunned, pushing aside every pretense he ever held. “That’s Korean. You just spoke Korean, so well, to me. You’re a Korean speaker.”

Bet he didn’t think Wooyoung would be  _that_ sharp, did he?

“You never cease to surprise me,” the guy sighs, looking above his head, “And yeah, I speak Korean, but only a little, I’m not overly great at it or anything -”

 _“Handsome guy,” W_ ooyoung can’t help himself, okay, he’s a creature that is built up from scratch from multitudes of impulses. _"Won’t you let me have your name?”_

It worked like a charm. The guy stutters and staggers, careening off to the side of the rooftop, and disappears from view, but Wooyoung has a trained ear, next to an almost irreparably mediocre one. he definitely heard -

“ _Sa_ _n_. My name’s _San_.”

He leans over the rooftop, across the balcony, whistling, a little bit too nefariously.

When Yeosang picks him up, he has a grin on his face, almost too evil and too many teeth for it to be a nice smile.

“What’s with your face,” his friend, partner in crime, accomplice in legal misgivings, shoves a bottle of disinfectants onto his hand, glancing over him.

“I got a date ~” he singsongs. “Also I promised him a look into sleeve garters, so.”

Yeosang blinks, and scoots away from him.

“I don’t want to hear about it. Never tell me about it. Keep that to yourself.”

 

(He leans over the balcony, screaming in wild abandon to the night sky -

_“Maybe on our third date, I'll show you my sleeve garters, San-ssi! Look forward to it ~!”)_

**Author's Note:**

> i accept criticism. including the ones that tell me to delete
> 
> P.S.: i love you all but i'm scared of long AUs so uhhhhh how would y'all respond to that,,,,,
> 
> find me on social media: [twitter](https://twitter.com/tacobell_com), [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny) and [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tacomakers-central)


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